Scoot Bringing Zipcar-like Electric Scooters to San Francisco

Photo: Courtesy of Scoot Networks

Snagging a cab in San Francisco is hard enough and renting a car for a quick blast across town seems like overkill — not to mention finding parking when you arrive. Scoot Networks wants to provide an alternative in the form of pay-as-you-go scooters. And even better, their fleet of two-wheelers are all electric.

Photo: Courtesy of Scoot Networks

Funded by sustainable start-up incubator Greenstart and originally shown at the San Francisco Launch conference, Scoot Networks is the brainchild of founder and CEO Michael Keating, who’s put the program into alpha testing last month with a small fleet of 10 electric scooters.

“We’re hoping to expand that to 20-something in the next two weeks,” Keating says, with another batch of the Chinese-produced electric runabouts headed to the Oakland docks in the next few days.
Each scooter has a range of around 20 miles, but just like any other EV, heavy acceleration and hills can reduce the range. Even so, Keating maintains that the scooters are good for at least one round trip in the city and charging can be done through a standard 110-volt outlet. Scoot only has one charging garage for now, but plans to expand that to “hundreds” in the near term, beginning with dedicated Scoot-branded garages and then moving on to transit hubs, including the Bay Area’s BART system and Muni bus stations.

Reserving a scooter will be as simple as launching an app on your smartphone to find the nearest garage and once you’re saddled up, you’ll be able to dock your phone in the handlebars to provide speed, state of charge and GPS data.

Pricing is still up in the air, but Scoot is currently doling out its bikes for $5 an hour or the same amount to rent it overnight and then return it the following morning. A subscription model is also in the works, which Keating says would cost approximately the same as a monthly bus pass and a few cab rides (figure around $100).
Because of the scooters’ relative simplicity, Scoot should be able to keep the costs in check, with Keating admitting, “I’m not a mechanic, so I’ve been maintaining them myself.”

As for safety, the scooters max out at 30 mph, negating the need for a motorcycle license, and for bicylists adept at navigating the close confines of the city, the barrier to entry is rather low. Still, Scoot will provide a 15-minute orientation and 30 minutes of on-bike training for those who want additional practice. “If you’ve been riding a bike in the city,” Keating says, “you know how to deal with the hazards.”

Scoot is likely to graduate from “alpha” to “beta” stage in the coming months, with a full-scale launch happening later this year.